Finding Confidence To Make the Big Promise with Sue Bryce
When I talked to Sue Bryce for the Profit. Power. Pursuit. podcast, I wanted to find out how someone so open, vulnerable, and approachable could also be so confident and self-assured. Sue doesn’t just have presence and poise—she has a conviction about the value of her work that borders on bravado in the best possible way.
Sue has no qualms telling women, “I will take the best photograph of you that you’ve ever seen.”
Can you say that about your work? Do you?
There are so many creative and idea-driven business owners who love their work, delight in their ideas, but don’t have that conviction. It shows in the way they talk about what they do, market what they offer, approach sales conversations, and price their wares.
Sue says, “People who devalue money devalue themselves.”
And, I think the reverse can be said as well. People who devalue themselves devalue money. If you find yourself constantly cursing the need to sell, if you find yourself regularly decrying the almighty dollar, you might want to reconsider what you think about yourself.
When you find deep-rooted confidence in your work and in yourself, you can come into a much easier relationship with money. Sue does a lot of hard work on herself and her personal growth to facilitate that relationship. And that, I found, seems to be the connection between her openness and vulnerability and her unwavering confidence. It’s a beautiful combination.
Listen to Sue Bryce’s interview on the Profit. Power. Pursuit podcast and subscribe to receive new episodes automatically.
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“The Act of Moving Toward Something You Want is Transformation In Itself”
Today marks the launch of Profit. Power. Pursuit. : a CreativeLive podcast with me, Tara Gentile, as host. There is an exceptionally strong mission behind this podcast—and it’s not just the mission statement we’ve created.
For me, our mission is about truth-telling. It’s about shedding light on what actually makes creative or idea-driven businesses work. We pay a lot of lip service to following your passion or living your dream life but we often forget the logistics, administration, and sheer grit that it takes to do that.
The people I’m talking to on this podcast don’t forget—can’t forget—it. They live the logistics, administration, and grit every day.
Now, I don’t believe for a minute that you think running a creative or idea-driven business is easy or even glamorous. You know it’s hard work. Yet, a huge knowledge gap between “follow your passion” and “become super successful” persists.
Plenty of people will talk about the empowering upside of entrepreneurship; few are talking about how they actually built a team, negotiated their fees, invested in the future of their businesses, or handled failures.
I want to change that with this podcast.
Every time you listen, I want you to discover something new about the ways creative people are making money, taking control of their businesses, and pursuing what’s truly important to them. I want you to experience the logistics, the administration, and the grit. I want you to connect the dots between a problem you’re having and problems that my guests have solved.
To kick off this podcast, I sat down with Chase Jarvis and Craig Swanson, the co-founders of CreativeLive. They talked to me separately so that I could get an unfiltered view of each of their perspectives on profit, power, and the pursuit of what’s meaningful.
My favorite moment from Craig’s interview was his explanation of failure. He told me a story about realizing that learning how to rollerblade meant first learning how to fall down. He also explained how “learning what falling feels like” helps the team at CreativeLive be resilient in the face of technical difficulties, production snafus, or marketing disappointments. The team has internalized the feeling of failure so that they can move through it quickly and create a solution on the fly.
My favorite moment with Chase was when he talked about the deep transformation the students, instructors, team, and he experience through CreativeLive. Each class taught, each lesson learned, and each hurdle overcome changes us simply because we’re moving toward our desire.
Becoming a CreativeLive instructor has changed me. Founding CreativeLive has changed Chase and Craig. Watching CreativeLive has changed hundreds of thousands of students. And all because we’ve taken steps toward what we want: the profit that comes from creating value, the power that comes from taking control of your own life, and the pursuit of what’s truly important to us.
As Craig said, “The act of moving towards something we want is transformative in itself.”
I hope you are transformed by listening to Profit. Power. Pursuit. as I have already been transformed by hosting it. Listen for the details, the nitty-gritty, and the unexpected—you won’t be disappointed.
Click here to download the podcast. While you’re at it, please subscribe. Your subscriptions help us reach more people with this podcast and create even more transformations in the world of creative business.
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5 Resolutions to Bring About Your Next Business Breakthrough
Why do some businesses seem to “tip” over and over again while others never quite seem to break through? I spend an inordinate amount of time trying to figure that out.
Often their businesses look identical on the outside. Many times, the difference boils down to a misunderstanding about what’s going on beneath the surface and how they engineer the success they achieve.
You can’t possibly hope to recreate a business’s success by recreating what you see at the surface level. You’ve got to dig in and figure out what else is happening.
In this post, I’d like to reveal some of the actions that are causing big business breakthroughs for the entrepreneurs you’re admiring and how you can apply them for yourself as New Business Year’s resolutions—now, or anytime throughout the year.
If you’re trying to engineer a tipping point or breakthrough in your business right now, you’re not alone. It probably goes without saying, but everyone I work with is in that situation: they’re ready for change. They’re tipping from part-time to full-time, one-to-one sales to leveraged sales, paying the bills to creating wealth, going at it alone to growing a team, moving from one business model to another to generate exponentially more revenue.
They each tell me, “I know what got me here won’t get me where I want to go.” And, I wholeheartedly agree.
What tipping point are you at? What breakthrough do you want to engineer for your business in the next year? Maybe you’re ready to break through to a new revenue threshold. You’re ready to hire a new team member. You’re ready to expand operations or roll out new offers. You’ve got growth on your mind and you’re busy putting the pieces into place to make that happen.
Here’s what is going on behind-the-scenes of the businesses that are constantly making it happen. What can you incorporate into your next plan?
1.) Put boots on the ground and find new customers.
It might seem like your next revenue breakthrough is just a traffic-building tactic away. You’re probably regularly on the look out for new ways to get more eyeballs on your blog posts, Facebook page, or sales letters. Maybe you’re looking at running Facebook ads, or the finer points of JV webinars, or constantly building new welcome gifts to entice people to your email list.
But the most effective community builders and salespeople know that nothing beats putting boots on the ground to find new customers. Literally. They’re at conferences, hosting events, picking up the phone, and meeting with prospects.
It might be slow going but the results are staggering. These people land bigger gigs, sign better contracts, and create strong relationships with influencers that put them in front of hundreds or thousands of more customers in the end.
2.) Set prices based on goals and hard data.
Sales solves most business problems. Except, when it doesn’t. Sales can’t get you to your next business breakthrough if the prices of your products or services just make things worse every time you sell something.
Breakthrough business owners use hard data to set their prices. And, they set prices based on what they want, instead of what they have.
How do they do it? They figure out how much it costs to run the business they want (not the one they have) and they figure out how much it costs to live the life they want (not the one they have).
Then they break it down. How much can they reasonably sell? What does that knowledge lead to in terms of price points? Where do those price points lead you in terms of positioning? To have a big breakthrough, you need to think of price as a way to reach all of your goals—not just revenue.
Price tells a story that can position your brand, woo the right customers, and lead to big life changes.
3.) Decide to spend more.
I’m all for finding the leanest, meanest way to make your business run. But I’m so tired of hearing business owners always looking for a free solution to their problems.
You see, free solutions have a cost. Every time someone dials your conference line and hears, “Service provided by Free Conference Call,” they make a judgement about your business. Every time you can’t use an important feature of an app because you’re not paying for it, it costs you effectiveness and functionality.
You’ll never hit a breakthrough that makes you feel comfortable spending more. It’s a decision you make that you are worth it, your customers are worth it, and your business is worth it. This kind of worth doesn’t come from revenue—it comes from intense focus on what the vision of what you’re creating.
4) Don’t try so hard.
Business breakthroughs rarely come from working harder. In fact, working harder can make your breakthrough far more difficult to achieve. Why? Because innovation doesn’t come from working harder, it comes from creative constraints.
Whenever you feel yourself pushing to make something happen, take a step back and reevaluate. What’s really going on?
- Is there a skill you’ve avoided learning?
- Do you need help from someone more experienced?
- Is your current business model holding you back from earning more?
- Is there a fatal flaw in your plan?
- Are you avoiding the temporary discomfort of growth by relying on what you know (working harder)?
If working harder is your usual MO, put new constraints in place by answering these questions. Give yourself a limited number of clients to reach your revenue goal (price accordingly). Learn a new skill (stop spinning your wheels). Connect with a mentor (stop trying to figure it out yourself).
5) Take advantage of a solid support network.
Stop trying to grow your business in isolation. Stop waiting for others to catch up. Stop cultivating relationships that feel safe. There is no more pressing time to break out of your comfort zone than when it comes to building your support network.
You need to connect with people who intimidate you, use different methods, and work in different industries. You need people in your corner who are making things happen at the same—or faster—pace as you are. Sometimes, you need to pay money to establish these relationships quickly. That’s okay.
Other times, you need to make serious investments of time. That’s okay, too. Relationship-building has a cost. But the return on investment is incredible.
Stop waiting for people to come to you and start building a network that catapults your business forward. No matter how you choose to set resolutions (or not) for the new year, integrate these ideas and watch them transform your business.
Now, I’d like to hear from you. What’s your big business goal for the next 12 months? Click here and tell me—and please be specific!
Have Trouble Creating an Action Plan and Sticking to It?
For as much as you love the idea of figuring out how to do business your way, you also want a clear-cut action plan. You sense that someone else has come along and figured out the best way to launch a program, turn a service into a product, or build a compelling brand, and you want to know the 1-2-3 step plan for making that happen.
But you’re also not naive. You know there’s no cookie cutter action plan that just works for everyone. So you try to create your own.
And you still come up short. You take action only to find yourself back in the weeds and confused about priorities.
Why does that happen?
I’ve been thinking about this problem quite a bit. I want to figure out why it is so easy for me to turn an idea into effective action and so difficult for so many other people.
Here’s my current hypothesis:
Your action plans fail because they assume your goals require linear action. You try to create a set of steps to follow instead of a strategic map that incorporates all areas of your business.
Once you’ve passed the startup stage of your business, all of your execution has to be integrated action instead of linear action.
Linear action is “first I do this, then I do that, then I’ll do the next thing.” Integrated action means knowing that when you act on one thing, it affects many other parts of your business. One simple action can create a chain reaction of necessary actions.
To get the most out of any plan, you need to account for how you’ll manage those chain reactions. Some, you’ll act on immediately. Those are the things that best support your strategy and help you create the most amount of leverage. Others, you’ll intentionally put on the back burner. You can’t do everything right away.
You also need to know your overall strategy for each area of your business so that once you realize a chain reaction is occurring in that area, you can act with intention in line with your strategy.
Here’s what that looks like in my business:
I’ve started a complete restructuring plan for 2016. It includes changing the format and scope of the foundational Quiet Power Strategy™ program, adding additional outcome-oriented programs, and building multiple channels for new members to join our community.
I started by planning out the first 6 months of the year on giant calendars. This was linear action planning. Now I can see when I will start promoting, launching, selling, and delivering our new programs.
However, if that’s all I would do, my plan would fail.
Now that I have a basic structure for my 2016 plan, I need to rework many other parts of my business. I’ve decided to rebrand our membership community and incorporate it into Quiet Power Strategy™; I’ve decided to move from Mailchimp (sad face, still love ‘em!) to ConvertKit; I’ve created a plan for identifying, segmenting, and nurturing new members based on their interests so that we can connect them to the right offers.
Each one of those things (and the many other decisions and systems involved) warrants its own linear action plan. But again, without integrating that into the overall plan, those action plans are worthless.
If you try to reduce your action plans to linear action, you’ll always (and I mean, always) come up short. A formula—even one of your own creation—is just never good enough. One step in that formula will always lead to another chain reaction of steps.
This is also why it feels like you’re regularly biting off more than you can chew. Once you get started on a good plan, it quickly spirals out of control because you realize just how much more there is to do.
One way I’ve found to effectively combat this problem is to pre-mortem my plans. A pre-mortem is essentially a way to reverse engineer your problem-solving and incorporate it into your action plan to begin with. When you do a pre-mortem, pretend your plan has utterly failed—the patient is dead on the table—then list any and all reasonable factors that could have contributed to its failure.
Once you have that list, countermeasures need to be integrated into your action plan. Now, you have an integrated action plan.
As you turn your focus to the next phase of your business, pay special attention to the chain reactions that necessarily occur because of the decisions you make. Create plans that anticipate and incorporate these chain reactions so that you’re not left in a lurch with your action planning.
The 4 Stages of Idea-Driven Business
I love idea-driven businesses. They’re not just solving problems, they’re not just serving people, they’re not just putting cool products out into the world.
Idea-driven businesses are fueled by the pursuit of change.
Their innovation is born from a deep desire to change the way people think about themselves, their businesses, their homes, their careers, their wardrobes, their families, etc…
Idea-driven businesses come in all shapes and sizes. Some create physical products, others offer services, still more offer education or training.
I’ve been working primarily with idea-driven businesses for about the last 5 years. I’ve encountered them at all stages and have created systems for tackling the biggest problems they face. So with this article, I want to shed light on the different stages of idea-driven business and what problems each stage entails so that you have a better idea of where your idea-driven business is and where it’s headed.
I’ve included a description of each stage, the biggest difficulty the business faces in each, what happens during the transition from one stage to the next, and, finally, the inflection point that changes the transition from eventual to intentional.
STAGE 1: STARTUP
A startup is defined as a business that is trying to figure out how it will make money, reach a growing number of customers, and build the systems it needs for continuous optimization.
Yes, this normally comes with the trappings of venture capital, hip offices in an expensive city, and fancy parties. But it absolutely doesn’t have to.
At the heart of whether a business is a startup or not is 1 core activity: learning.
Think about when you started your business: did you know what product or service offers would work? Did you know the best way for you to find customers? Did you know what you even wanted your business to look like at maturity? No.
You were learning. You were learning how you could reliably make money; you were learning how you should connect with the right people; and, you were learning how to do those things more efficiently so you didn’t lose your mind (hopefully).
This is the Startup Stage of idea-driven business. At this stage, the idea may not even be articulated. It could be more of an ethos or personal philosophy in the back of your mind. You don’t know the value of it yet—and how could you?
You’re simply figuring out how you can make money, reach the right people, and do things more efficiently as you go in an effort to create positive change for people. You start doing the work, put up a website, and learn how your work is most useful.
BIGGEST DIFFICULTY: Finding people to offer your product or service to so you can learn.
THE TRANSITION: As your business starts to enter the transition to the next stage, you find yourself reasonably confident about what will sell and what won’t. You have a hazy understanding of where you can find new customers when you need them. You’re paying the bills but it’s not always easy. You’re excited about your business but the reality of how you will make it grow seems incredibly daunting.
INFLECTION POINT: You realize that nothing will change unless your business changes. Your business can’t grow without a significant adjustment to the way it creates, delivers, and exchanges value.
STAGE 2: GROWTH
The Growth Stage begins when you don’t just repeat what’s worked in the past but truly understand why it’s worked. When you know why certain products, tactics, or messages have worked, you can engineer new products, tactics, or messages based on that same principle.
Now, you begin to take control of the growth of your idea-driven business. It’s intentional expansion—not the unintentional explosion that often leads to collapse.
In the Growth Stage, you might need a waiting list or to get some production assistance. Things are still tight but you’re starting to see how they could work out—and you sense wiggle room might be just around the corner.
BIGGEST DIFFICULTY: Finding ways to serve more people without burning out.
TRANSITION: Here is where your idea starts to emerge. You discovered it hiding underneath the unique way you offer your work and you’ve started to talk about it. That idea has helped your business growth gain traction and momentum.
INFLECTION POINT: You realize you’re spinning your wheels on growth. There’s little point in reaching more people because your business doesn’t have a way to serve them. Because there’s little point, you’re not doing what you need to do to reach more people. Revenue growth stalls—even if reach does not.
STAGE 3: LEVERAGE
The Leverage Stage begins when you use your idea as a way to do more with less work. Your idea becomes the heart & soul of your message, offers, brand, and business model. Your business is known for its unique perspective. Your business has stopped trying to be everything to everyone.
Idea-driven businesses don’t always scale as they grow—but to reach a level of ease, they must find leverage.
Focus is the key to leverage. You focus on 1 message. You focus on 1 growth channel. You focus on 1 offer. You focus on 1 customer. It’s counterintuitive to get more specific and add more constraints to your business to create leverage—but it’s key.
BIGGEST DIFFICULTY: Clearly and concisely describing what you offer to appeal to the right people at the right time.
TRANSITION: As your business starts to enter the transition to the next stage, you sense that all that focus will allow your business to expand if only you can create the systems and get the help that will allow that to happen.
INFLECTION POINT: You see a pattern among your customers that point to additional ways you could be serving them. All you need is a way to make it happen—and you could significantly increase your revenue per customer.
STAGE 4: MICROENTERPRISE
The microenterprise is the startup all grown up. It’s lean, mean, and changing the world.
And you, as its owner, are not burnt out. You’re enjoying the freedom, control, independence, and influence that you imagined when you started this whole thing. You’re working your systems, optimizing regularly, and letting your growth machine do most of the work.
You have a team to support you and your ideas. You’re not responsible for every email, decision, or sale. You have time to think, be creative, and enjoy being an executive.
BIGGEST DIFFICULTY: Knowing when to disrupt your own systems or process.
Orienting your business to the stage that you’re in helps you anticipate pitfalls, plan proactively, and discern your next steps. Plus, when you know what stage you’re in, you know you’re not alone. The frustrations you feel and the goals that you have put you in the company of other smart idea people who are making things happen.
Building a business is a journey–enjoy the ride.
It’s Not You: 3 Things to Consider in the Face of Failure
Product development often feels like throwing spaghetti at a wall. (Though it doesn’t have to.)
And sadly, when that spaghetti doesn’t stick, I see business owners not only throw in the towel but blame themselves and their ideas for the failure. It’s never “you” that’s wrong with your idea; and, it’s rarely the idea that’s the problem.
Instead, there are 3 common reasons that products, programs, courses, and offers fail. Each of these can be avoided by creating and using a product development strategy that works.
Here’s what to consider in the face of failure:
1) The transformation isn’t clear.
Value is transformation. If the transformation isn’t clear, neither is the value of what you’re offering. “Life coaching” isn’t value. “Website design” isn’t value. “Jewelry” isn’t value.
Value is telling someone how their idea of themselves, their environment, their relationships, their skills, or their behavior will change as a result of using your product. Value is making it clear that there’s a Before and an After and making that story come alive on the page, on the call, or in the conversation.
Many businesses or products launch without having a clear picture of this transformation. If you don’t know what the transformation is, it’s your job to find out. That’s the only way to ensure the success of what you’re offering for the long-term.
If you’ve offered a product or program without a clear understanding of how you’re transforming someone’s experience, you’ve not gotten the results you’ve aimed for. That doesn’t mean there’s anything wrong with you or with the product—just a message you need to hone to create a much bigger return.
ACTION: Rewrite the top third of your sales page or letter to describe the Before & After your product creates for your customer.
2) The market wasn’t ready.
Few businesses spend the time to create market readiness. They have a brilliant idea and decide to hurl it on people they suspect might need it.
In order for your market to be ready for what you’re offering, they need to see how their current experience connects to what you’re offering. That connection takes time. Very few customers make the leap as quickly as you do—and, if you base your “failure” on the limited number of people who do, you will always see failure.
Instead, take time, paint the picture, connect the dots. Make sure your people have ample time to walk down the path of their own experience with you before you show them what you have to offer.
ACTION: Create a content sequence and sales conversation that starts further out (maybe 6-10 weeks from the time you want your first sale).
3) The offer wasn’t urgent.
People love to buy (we so often forget). But they prioritize things that solve immediate problems or frustrations over things that just sound cool.
At this point, you’ve got cool down.
What about urgent? Natural urgency in marketing isn’t telling people there are a limited number of spots (when there aren’t) or giving people only a fraction of time to buy. Natural urgency ties a pressing need to the promise of your product.
That pressing need, again, has nothing to do with “life coaching,” “web design,” or “jewelry.” It has everything to do with deciding to quit your job, landing higher paid speaking gigs, or looking great for a big interview.
Tie what you have to offer to a personal priority for your customers and you’ll sell more every time.
ACTION: Write a sales email for an evergreen offer that ties the product to a personal priority your customers have. Send it!
Remember, it’s not you. It’s likely not even your product. Failure comes from lots of sources. Next time sales don’t go the way you expect, consider these 3 potential problems and make an adjustment.
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P.S. It’s time to great a program or course that works (better results for you and your students). Find out more about The Master Class today. We start next week!